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| |    When Your Older Adolescent May be Using Drugs by Dr. Benjamin Spock reviewed by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. Adapted from Baby and Child Care With older adolescents--age 15 and up--you want to help your child make his own wise decisions about drugs, rather than clamp down with rules he'll have a strong impulse to break. (With younger adolescents, a more controlling approach may work better.) First, on a one-to-one basis, you need to discuss the problem openly. If you don't know what you're up against, it will be harder to fashion a response. You need to gather some information, such as: What are you using? How much are you using? How often? Why do you think you are using this drug? What do you get from it? What do your friends say? What are your concerns about your drug use? Don't try to get answers to all of your questions in one meeting. If for some reason you cannot establish a dialogue with your child, you need to consider having another adult attempt it. Young people need an adult to talk to, professional or not--a person who has a natural understanding of child development and who will not think first of punitive approaches. Drug testing If your child denies drug use but you still are very suspicious, you might think about arranging a medical checkup. If your child has a good relationship with his doctor or nurse practitioner, he may be willing to divulge his secrets and obtain help from a professional. Urine testing is not always the right answer for teens who deny drug use, but in a few special situations, it may be appropriate. It's a bad idea, however, to pretend to do a different sort of urine test (say, a standard urine analysis), but to actually send the urine for a drug screen. In catching the adolescent in a lie, you have also destroyed any trust there might have been, and so have made it much less likely that the adolescent will cooperate. When is urine testing helpful? If the child shows all the signs of drug use, if he seems to be lying, and if there is no other explanation of these signs, then openly doing the testing may bring the child to the table and force him to confront his drug use. Sometimes drug testing and even regular drug monitoring will actually help children gain control of their lives. It may also give the child and parents a common ground for discussion. For more useful information check out our Tobacco, Family Relationships, and School Problems programs. Click here to join the discussion on Drugs, Alcohol, and Tobacco.
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